May, 2011
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Raj Gupta and McKinsey, profiled.
- Why Kemal Dervis should be the next IMF Managing Director.
- The Google carry trade.
- Grading the Repulicans’ analysis of monetary policy and oil prices.
The ‘Asia connection’ to the commodity rout
Our colleagues on the paper-side drew attention last week to the fact that silver trading in Asian hours experienced a clear pickup into the lead up to the commodity rout.
Jack Farchy wrote, citing Edel Tully,
EasyEmails
How can FT Alphaville possibly have missed this set of missives, recently published on the easyGroup corporate website?
Noted without further comment (except to say that the exchange is related to this FT piece):
Google adventures out along the yield curve [updated]
By John McDermott and Cardiff Garcia
Here’s a corporate bond mystery for you.
Google has $36.7bn cash on hand as of the end of March, according to its Q1 SEC filing. $16.9bn of this cash is held overseas.
Autocracy risk, Belarus edition
‘Hello? We’ve heard the IMF is still headed by a European pariah…’
RTRS-BELARUS MAY ASK IMF FOR FINANCIAL SUPPORT -LUKASHENKO PRESS SERVICE
‘…room for one more?’
Yes, it’s time for a trip through the inverted world of Bizarro to Europe’s last dicatorship Belarus — a sovereign that’s facing crisis on just about everything but its government debt.
The Greek re-profiling mess
FT Alphaville has been there, done that on calling a ‘voluntary’ Greek debt maturity extension.
But it’s (at last) overtly on the agenda, and comparisons to Uruguay’s 2003 re-profiling are doing the rounds again.
A colour-coded guide to the Greek crisis
From Ralf Preusser and Sphia Salim at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the analysts reckon the ‘muddling through’ options are most likely:
Markets Live transcript 17 May 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:33 on 17 May 2011. Participants in this chat were: bryce.elder Tony Tassell BEGood morning BEAnd welcome to Markets Live
Mervyn, crucified [updated]
The biggest year-on-year rise since October 2008…
The second-biggest one-month increase on record…
A record high in core CPI…
A stupid seasonal quirk…
Yep, just your usual UK inflation release in 2011.
China’s trusts – still booming
Beijing may have cracked down on bank trust products– the unholy alliance of off-balance sheet banking and wealth management — but more traditional trusts? Those that function without banks?
They’re still going strong,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- DSK, the loony philosopher’s angle.
- ‘Of the 251,287 WikiLeaks documents… 23,927 of them — nearly one in 10 — reference oil.’
- Why QE1 was fab (and QE2 wasn’t.)
- Banks as reverse cookie jars.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Market insight: George Magnus – China’s central bank is new key player
Good suspense drama is when an unlikely character emerges slowly as the principal hero or villain,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Talks between BP, Rosneft and AAR shareholders fail to reach agreement – Reuters.
- Babcock full-year profit soars 57 per cent to £228.2m – statement.
- Vodafone sets 2012 guidance in line with forecasts,
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- The upward slope of real house prices.
- Two new economics data sites.
- A profile of the new bid for TMX.
- Has the manufacturing recovery been overstated? Not if you’re looking at profits.
Nasdaq gets flacktastic over dodgy company’s bell-ringing
The Financial Investigator reached a Nasdaq spokesman, Robert Madden, on his cell phone for comment. After learning who was asking the questions and their nature, Madden suddenly developed an inability to hear the conversation and hung up,
No bail for IMF bailout lord
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was remanded in custody on Monday by a New York court. From the FT:
The head of the International Monatery Fund was appearing in a Manhattan court on Monday to face a complaint over an alleged sexual assault on a maid at a hotel in the city.
I think, therefore I am nothing
Perhaps some Deutsche Bank analysts have been into the absinthe.
From a DB research note out Monday:
Philosophically one has to question whether there is any merit in being worried about anything.
Well,
Hello to bondholders, Dubai to banks
Or, what happens when an autocratic put and bad debts collide?
In which FT Alphaville wonders if one of 2011′s greatest stunts in defying credit gravity (charts via Exotix)…
…is on the verge of running into trouble.
How the Basel III sausage gets made
Otto von Bismarck may have been talking laws when he made his first sausage analogy, but it’s well-suited to the creation of Basel III banking rules. Just think of all the toing and frowing over things like upcoming Liquidity Coverage Ratios (LCRs) and Net Stable Funding Ratios (NSFRs).
It wasn’t the ‘froth’ that caused the commodities rout
Contrary to popular belief, analysis of the latest CFTC position data is beginning to show that it wasn’t so much the ‘froth’ in the market that was responsible for this month’s run-up and subsequent commodity price collapse,
Teva moves in on Japan’s nascent generics boom
The one certainty about a country with a rapidly greying population is that its demand for drugs — more and cheaper ones — will almost certainly grow.
Amid the latest acquisition frenzy taking hold in the world of big pharma,
Markets Live transcript 16 May 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:15 on 16 May 2011. Participants in this chat were: bryce.elder Joseph Cotterill, FT BEGood morning BEAnd welcome to another Markets Live
How do you say bail-in in Swedish?
Those who don’t keep up with Danish legal proceedings might have missed this development.
Last week, the country’s lawmakers sat down to debate a tweak to the country’s Bankpakke III bailout (or should that be bail-in?) bill.
China’s copper collateral – and covert credit
Whatever happened to China’s amazing copper collateral shenanigans?
Goldman Sachs said last month that China’s central bank may have cracked-down on the scheme, which saw Chinese corporates use copper as collateral for new loans.
Après Strauss-Kahn [Updated]…
No, you could not make it up, as FT Alphaville previously noted.
News of the weekend arrest of IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn gave blogs and news media organisations an eventful Sunday night as more information emerged about the circumstances allegedly leading to Strauss-Kahn’s arrest.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- No he Kahn’t.
- Strauss-Kahn, the tabloid take.
- The ‘red collar’ crime wave.
- NYT magazine discovers gold!
- ‘Quirky views’ on managing fixed income.
- “Act as if”:
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Monday’s FT,
Wolfgang Münchau: Dogmatists raise the costs of eurozone crisis
It is getting harder, politically. Finland and Germany have approved the bail-out of Portugal.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- Glencore said to lift IPO price range to 520-550p a share – Reuters.
- Euro slumps to seven-week low after IMF head’s arrest – Reuters.
- London Stock Exchange says TMX has received approach from Maple Group – statement.
FTfm on AV
Some highlights from Monday’s FTfm.
‘Creativity’ may tarnish Ucits brand
Some in the European funds industry are becoming alarmed over the increasing complexity of Ucits products, many of which no longer adhere to the 5/10/40 rule
Hedge funds are not ‘shadow banks’
Regulators have found a new bogeyman – ‘shadow banking’,